Acoma Pueblo duo convicted in infant's death

ALBUQUERQUE {AP} An Acoma Pueblo couple has been convicted of second-degree murder in the death of a 16-month-old boy.

A federal jury on Tuesday found Claudine Ann Vallo and her boyfriend, David Edward Chino, guilty of physical abuse that resulted in the July 1998 death of Vallo's son, Zachary.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Winder argued in court that Vallo, 26, and Chino, 21, played significant roles in the abuse that landed the infant in the intensive-care unit at University Hospital last summer. Zachary had been airlifted from a medical clinic near the pueblo, where he had been brought after going into seizures provoked when Vallo pushed him off a kitchen chair for not drinking his milk.

Doctors at University Hospital testified that Zachary had massive head injuries and bruises covering most of his body.

"What happened to Zachary is unjustified," Winder said.

"We want folks to know that if they abuse a child and it results in death, they're going to be prosecuted for second-degree murder," he said. "This young man should be alive today and they're (Vallo and Chino) responsible for the fact he's not."

Vallo's attorney, Jerry Herrera, told jurors that Zachary's death "is a tragedy on so many levels, but it's not second-degree murder." Herrera said Vallo herself was the victim of abuse and neglect during a troubled childhood and that she never meant to kill her child.

Vallo was cleared of an assault charge, but Chino, who is not the boy's father, was found guilty of four assault charges that took place prior to the boy's death.